Picking Butter Beans

The Butter Beans is a hot weather vegetable and it is ready for its first picking in the beginning of August.  My trusted gardener here on the Back Forty may have been a little too anxious to pick the beans this morning;  some of them were not fully mature and had to be put into the compost.

I also have another helper with the garden and she proclaims "that you are not a Southerner, unless you like butter beans."  That may be true, but who does not like butter beans?

We have the pole butter beans climbing up on permanent trellises:  it is easier for us to pick them that way, but they also come as bush beans.

Also, some people call the butter beans Lima beans or baby Lima beans.  It really dos not matter.

This young girl shelled the beans, I cooked them, and we ate them.

Some butter beans are pale green and others are off white.  When they are blanched before freezing, they turn up slightly greener and glossier.  Ordinarily, I cook the beans in plenty of water and serve them with a dab of margarine.

Of course, the beans also add interest to a vegetable soup.

Last year, our butter beans lasted long into the spring because of the mild winter weather.  They could have used some fertilizer.  In addition, the pole beans also make for a very nice and natural privacy hedge.

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